Gavin Barberand son went to the most recent “Family Day” at Portman Road and he was less than impressed.

On pages 9-11 of the Turnstile Blues fanzine, Alistair Rattray gave an excellent and thoroughly comprehensive description of Town’s recent failure to connect with supporters through media, public relations and matchday entertainment. So when the club announced that the Sheffield Wednesday game would be a “family day”, with discounted prices and special events for kids, I was hopeful that it might have been a move in the right direction.

Sadly, like an Aaron Cresswell set-piece or an item of New Labour legislation, it appears to have been a decent idea which was let down by being badly executed.

The discounted prices meant that kids tickets were priced at £5 – a decent reduction on the normal price, but at a time when the ground was set to be barely more than half-full anyway, why not accept it as a loss-leader and admit accompanied kids for £1, or even for free? There are other clubs in the League structure who admit under 7s for nothing as a matter of course. Surely better to have some better-populated stands for once.

More significantly, and much like the recent discounted ticket promotion for the game against Cardiff, the event suffered from very few people apparently knowing about it in advance. There were a couple of press releases which were picked up by the usual outlets (such as TWTD) and something on the Club website, but very little detail. I’m aware that resources are limited, but there seems to be a very one-dimensional approach to public relations from the Club at the moment – as though the mere release of information into the public domain will suffice for bringing things to the attention of people who might be interested to hear about them. Were efforts made through local schools, play centres and Children’s Centres?

Details in advance of the day were vague – my son was particularly interested in the “mascot race” which had been mentioned in the press release, but it was only through tweeting Planet Blue on my way to the game that I found out when and where it was happening (credit, incidentally, to whoever manages the Planet Blue Twitter feed for getting straight back to me). As can be seen from what I believe to be my EXCLUSIVE video footage of the race, there was a sparse crowd in attendance to see Crazee romp home in first place.

There were face-painters in Planet Blue – which, again, I found out about through Twitter – unsurprisingly there was no queue for their services when we arrived. The Suffolk Playbus – an excellent facility for pre-schoolers – was parked way on the far side of the practice pitch (a long walk for little legs). There were golf and bowling events which were fine in themselves but – again – suffered because very few people knew they were happening.

From my dealings with the Club I’ve always got the impression that there are some very hard-working and dedicated members of staff there. It’s a shame that they – and by extension, supporters – are being let down by a lack of infrastructure which means that well-meaning initiatives such as Family Day are nowhere near as good – or as effective – as they could be.